WIP Improve Baldewyn Coffier & Arnaud/Sabine Matton Sidequests

As Sylvie Bondies is supposed to have lived there for several years, shouldn't she be there permanently? The vcskip could also be made permanent.

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Fair comment , since the house is open through the night (during the day she might just be out when you happen by) - so I'll revert her placing from initialization and deal with her dialogue differently to suit and if she is there there does need to be a vcskip too since otherwise why is she telling pchar to leave whilst running open house for all San Juan.

Talking of San Juan #sIsla Muelle# is the town, #sisland_Isla Muelle# is the island. Should it not be "Your girl is now safe in #sIsla Muelle#" or "on #sisland_Isla Muelle#"?

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good catch in it should be otherwise changing the previously hardcoded "Spanish colony" isn't properly done.

Additional: the version of "initItems.c" contained in that file has the revised weapon prices and stats of the ZIP updates, which are not going into my fixes-only collection. On the other hand, it does not have other items added for the "Woodes Rogers" storyline, which is going in. Could you add your new letter items to this version, please?

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No problem

Attached Files:

Fair comment , since the house is open through the night (during the day she might just be out when you happen by) - so I'll revert her placing from initialization and deal with her dialogue differently to suit and if she is there there does need to be a vcskip too since otherwise why is she telling pchar to leave whilst running open house for all San Juan.

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She could have invited her friends to her house. Before you've done the quest, you're not one of her friends.

The main advantage of adding a vcskip is so that you don't get random bandits in the house, with the risk that Sylvie Bondies could get killed in the crossfire, which would mess up the quest. If you don't choose to vcskip the house then you may want to make Sylvie Bondies immortal to prevent that.

It might make sense to close the house at night. She doesn't need the house to be open all the time, she needs her sleep as much as any of the good citizens of San Juan. Find somewhere else to spend the night and visit her next morning.

The main advantage of adding a vcskip is so that you don't get random bandits in the house, with the risk that Sylvie Bondies could get killed in the crossfire, which would mess up the quest. If you don't choose to vcskip the house then you may want to make Sylvie Bondies immortal to prevent that.

It might make sense to close the house at night. She doesn't need the house to be open all the time, she needs her sleep as much as any of the good citizens of San Juan. Find somewhere else to spend the night and visit her next morning.

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Surprisingly perhaps Sylvie being killed (by an aggressive approach breaking the sidequest) has seemingly been prevented even by pchar by code

Code:

LAi_LocationFightDisable(&Locations[n], true);

applied to her house ever since the stock game. One possible glitch the designers did pick up.

Anyway I have restored her to her home from the start, applied a vcskip and closed the house for the night when the other places close.

This all meant minor amendments to Sylvie's dialogue and removal of surplus code from Arnaud's

I have left the later inititems.c in the zip so the whole package is there for anyone using the Sept version but for @Grey Roger's fixes compilation the other version is, of course, in post #102.

I have left any fancy post sidequest dialogue for Sylvie for any future extension and just left the house locked.

If you play a female character, Sabine sees you as a role-model and wants to join your ship. If you take her as an officer, Arnaud keeps asking if you've seen her. If you say you haven't, the dialog ends. If you say you have, Sabine leaves you. In any case, what you can't do is say you want to talk, which means there is no way to sidequest stuff - and that breaks the "Cargo for Thomas O'Reily" and "Smuggling for Thomas O'Reily" quests. (Additionally, if Sabine is an officer and an active member of your party, you get the amusing situation where Arnaud asks if you've seen Sabine and she's standing right behind you. )

If you ransom Sabine, Arnaud refuses to talk to you any more. Again, that breaks the "Cargo for Thomas O'Reily" and "Smuggling for Thomas O'Reily" quests. In addition, if you attack St. Pierre, you can't loot the store.

@Talisman, @pedrwyth: as this quest is your project, would you like to try to resolve this, or do you want me to try?

A couple of problems with the "Sabine Matton" sidequest:@Talisman, @pedrwyth: as this quest is your project, would you like to try to resolve this, or do you want me to try?

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I'll have a look before I get too deep into looking at trading, but I'm currently away for a couple of months so nowhere near my modding tools and saved games etc. What's worse is I have stuffed something on my laptop such that it won't even run the games in the series - so will have to persuade my wife to lend me use of her laptop to test anything.

If you play a female character, Sabine sees you as a role-model and wants to join your ship. If you take her as an officer, Arnaud keeps asking if you've seen her. If you say you haven't, the dialog ends. If you say you have, Sabine leaves you. In any case, what you can't do is say you want to talk, which means there is no way to sidequest stuff - and that breaks the "Cargo for Thomas O'Reily" and "Smuggling for Thomas O'Reily" quests. (Additionally, if Sabine is an officer and an active member of your party, you get the amusing situation where Arnaud asks if you've seen Sabine and she's standing right behind you. )

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Never tried the added female scenario - have you a useful saved game for testing anything I try?

If you ransom Sabine, Arnaud refuses to talk to you any more. Again, that breaks the "Cargo for Thomas O'Reily" and "Smuggling for Thomas O'Reily" quests. In addition, if you attack St. Pierre, you can't loot the store.

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I always thought that was just a fair consequence of your actions but do have long term thoughts (as outlined earlier in the thread) about an extension to replace the storekeeper with a more sympathetic NPC. However it would fit with Arnaud's character to deal with you just for the receipt of that cargo - so an exception based on

Never tried the added female scenario - have you a useful saved game for testing anything I try?

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Unfortunately, no. The easiest method would probably be to start a FreePlay game as a French corsair so that you start at St. Pierre, then use CheatMode to give yourself enough money to lend to Baldewyn Coffier to start the quest. (Or just go straight to Arnaud Matton and accept the job to threaten Baldewyn.)

I always thought that was just a fair consequence of your actions but do have long term thoughts (as outlined earlier in the thread) about an extension to replace the storekeeper with a more sympathetic NPC.

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Suggestion: put Baldewyn Coffier into the store. He's told you how Arnaud Matton swindled him, and Sabine has told you how Arnaud mistreated her, so you have enough grounds to tell Arnaud to leave quietly or else. (Though if you hired Baldewyn Coffier as an officer, you may need an alternative candidate.)

Presumably there's some mechanism in the game to detect that the store is being looted because all the prices go to zero. Perhaps use the same mechanism to control Arnaud's dialog so that you can "trade" with him if the colony is being looted. And if the colony belongs to anyone other than France then you'll be the one who did it, so that's another possible way to check if you've defeated the fort. Especially if the colony belongs to Personal because you captured it for yourself.

Suggestion: put Baldewyn Coffier into the store. He's told you how Arnaud Matton swindled him, and Sabine has told you how Arnaud mistreated her, so you have enough grounds to tell Arnaud to leave quietly or else. (Though if you hired Baldewyn Coffier as an officer, you may need an alternative candidate.)

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Yes that's the long term I had in mind but I want to have a little bit more involved than just threatening in the normal case (like visit Thomas and persuade him to provide evidence about trading, get in with the governor and enlist his support to remove Arnaud etc). For now I will concentrate on allowing the Thomas O'Reily cargo to still be delivered.

Presumably there's some mechanism in the game to detect that the store is being looted because all the prices go to zero. Perhaps use the same mechanism to control Arnaud's dialog so that you can "trade" with him if the colony is being looted.

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Yes that's

Code:

if (LAi_IsCapturedLocation)

and if you capture the colony you would presumably sort out Arnaud whoever you passed the colony to. So maybe a bit of dialogue about "if you want to keep your head never mind your store you'll change your tune" and then revert to normal trade dialogues (which can be amended slightly if necessary to still seem OK) for future visits. That would still leave the possibility of putting Baldewyn in charge subsequently (if I get round to it).

Enclosed are the dialogue files to further tidy this side quest. I have added exceptions for Thomas O'Reily cargo and colony capture if you have made an enemy of Arnaud. Colony capture resets Arnaud to an amicable shopkeeper. If playing a female character you are now blocked from making Sabine an officer (a least until you agree it with Arnaud) to avoid his asking about her when she is in your shore party. I have also added a condition for placing Sabine in the store because some dialogue interactions could place her again when she was already on your ship.

I have only tested these by console commands setting up the scenarios not actual play so may still have missed a lapse in logic.

Finally they are based on August 29th and fixes (ie pre-latest build) so probably need winmerging into the latest.

Incidentally I did see Antoine Lebretton calling me madamoiselle but in the next breath refer to me as a gentleman when in female persona looking at this - but that may well have already been fixed in the gender rationalisation work?

Enclosed are the dialogue files to further tidy this side quest. I have added exceptions for Thomas O'Reily cargo and colony capture if you have made an enemy of Arnaud. Colony capture resets Arnaud to an amicable shopkeeper. If playing a female character you are now blocked from making Sabine an officer (a least until you agree it with Arnaud) to avoid his asking about her when she is in your shore party. I have also added a condition for placing Sabine in the store because some dialogue interactions could place her again when she was already on your ship.

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Thanks for that. I'll have to give it a try and see what happens now...

Finally they are based on August 29th and fixes (ie pre-latest build) so probably need winmerging into the latest.

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Nothing goes into the post 31st August updates without being checked with WinMerge anyway.

Incidentally I did see Antoine Lebretton calling me madamoiselle but in the next breath refer to me as a gentleman when in female persona looking at this - but that may well have already been fixed in the gender rationalisation work?

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No, that one seems to have been overlooked, so thanks for pointing it out. It's fixed now and that is also going into the next update.